Gee wrote:This makes sense, as most people, who have random experiences start to have them at puberty, or when hormones in the body change. People who have consistent psychic experiences, such as aura readers, seem to have the experiences from early childhood along with their first memories. I suspect these people have a 'hard-wired' type of psychic brain, that is not dependent upon chemical changes for the experience.

I was not aware of the distinction between those who have random psychic experiences, like myself, and those whose experiences are consistent. E.g: my oldest daughter, who claimed to have such experiences from preconsciousness . . . She's been making a living as a psychic healer for quite a while.

I was not aware of it either. But you must consider how I study consciousness. I look for How does it work?, What makes that happen?, What is the cause that makes that effect? I have never tried to explain this before, so please read this section through and think about it before responding.

Most people do not look for a cause for the supernatural, because they either believe it or deny it. They do not actually investigate it or how it works. People who believe that the supernatural is real try to understand it, so they run it through their minds over and over picking up ideas that add to the original experience -- trying to make sense out of it. These ideas usually end up with a religious or mystical theme. So although the original experience may be valid, the attempts to interpret and understand this experience often causes the information to become corrupted before it is really known in the rational mind.

People, who deny the supernatural, generally fall into two categories. In the first category, they state that it is not real, and is wishful thinking or imagination. They are wrong. Wishful thinking and imagination are both self-directed activities that work through the rational aspect of mind. So wishful thinking and imagination do not happen to you; you cause them. The supernatural happens to you, and you have little or no control over it. It is like the difference between talking and listening. They are both just words in your head, but one comes from you and the other comes to you.

In the second category of people who deny the supernatural, they will dismiss the experience because it is delusion, emotional hysteria, shock, dreams, etc. Unfortunately, these people are mostly correct. The supernatural usually presents itself in our dreams, in our emotional traumas, and in delusions. But do we know what emotion actually is? What dreams are? What delusions actually are, or what causes them? No. We do not. So these supposed explanations are not really answers at all, just dismissals. The reason that we call things delusions is because we don't understand them. So if someone states that you are having delusions, then what they are really stating is that it doesn't make sense. A more honest answer.

What we do know is that dreams, emotion, and delusion all originate in the sub/unconscious aspect of mind and require interpretation to be known in the rational mind. We also know that dreams, emotion, and delusion all react to chemicals in the brain, specifically hormones. We know that we can give hormones to elderly people, who have lost the ability to drop into REM sleep, which extends their life. We can use chemicals, specifically hormones, to cause delusion or to treat delusion as in schizophrenia. We can use chemicals to change emotion temporarily.

Historically, we know that people have used chemicals to achieve altered states of mind, but the altered states and accompanying delusions rarely have any value, except to make the person experiencing it value it. On the other hand, monks use discipline, sleep deprivation, and even starvation to achieve altered states of mind, and often this does have value and gives us truth. What makes the difference? It appears that the difference is that the valuable altered states are brought on by natural chemical changes. Sleep deprivation and starvation will cause a change in hormone levels; I read long ago that if you are going to have a premonition, it will be while pregnant (which is how it worked for me); women tend to have more psychic experiences, and women's bodies are in a constant flux of hormones; and emotional trauma and shock will change hormone levels. There is a huge body of evidence that shows us that natural chemical changes in the brain will bring on psychic experiences that often have value. And that artificial chemicals added to the body will bring on delusions that may or may not have value. Bonding, of course, is also part of this.

Then there are people, who do not seem to require chemical changes in order to have the experience. I spoke to an aura reader, who I believe actually could read auras, as there are so many charlatans. While questioning her, I learned that she has been able to see auras since she was a little girl from her first memories. She assumed that everyone saw them, but learned that most people don't. Her Grandmother also saw auras. She told me that there were two times when she did not see auras; when she was a teen and took recreational drugs, and in her third trimester of pregnancy. As a teen, she thought she had lost the ability, but when she stopped using drugs, her ability returned. So what we have here is a case where chemicals removed the psychic ability, rather than causing it. This ability was natural to her and part of the chemical makeup of her brain, and possibly inherited. This is what I would call a hard-wired psychic brain.

What would people say if I stated that angels have been singing to me all of my life. It is so beautiful that I wish everyone could hear it. Most people would say that I was a little delusional and ask if I was very religious. And yet, many of our greatest composers have made this very same claim, and at one time, it would have been called divine inspiration. No one thinks these composers delusional. Why is that? It is because they have the ability to reproduce it, to make it understandable to all of us. But this does not change the fact that they say they hear it, not that they create it. It comes to them, not from them. I suspect that this is just another example of a hard-wired brain that receives information. There are other examples, but this post is already too long.

To sum up: The supernatural is information that comes to us, not from us; it is caused by chemicals in the brain; it is much more valid when produced naturally; when it is received by a brain that can not interpret it, it is called delusion; when it is interpreted correctly, it is call 'divine inspiration' or some such thing; discipline and training of a person with a hard-wired brain can help to interpret it. Discipline and training when a brain has random experiences is not likely to lead to better interpretation. imo

Greylorn Ell wrote:I've not encountered this information before and would appreciate a reference. Not because I'm skeptical, but because it is information that I would like to reference in future communications with skeptical others.

Well, the information is everywhere, but I don't know of anyone, who has put it together. If I were a professor, I could get a bunch of students to research this, and maybe prove it. But I am not a perfessor.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I don't doubt that this happened, but unfortunately other people will. They will say that a dream state is unreliable and non reproducible so it is not valid. It is very difficult to try to get people to give up their biases in order to see something for what it is.

Tell me more about that, for I've never experienced such a thing.

After I picked up my jaw, this gave me a very good chuckle. I did not know you had such a dry sense of humor.

Greylorn Ell wrote:SR predicts that matter cannot exceed the speed of light, because an infinite amount of energy would be required to accelerate matter to "c." However, the theorist hypothesized that "information" might not be similarly limited, and did the math on what would happen to information transmitted faster than "c." It would move backward in time, and thus into into the future!

I was surprised that Science, a journal for the hard science community, published this paper, because the fastest way we have to transmit information is via electromagnetic signals, which move only at "c," light-speed. There is no way to transmit information faster, according to conventional physics.

Well, this is all very interesting, but it begs the question, Is thought matter? Most people suspect that emotion is thought in motion, which makes sense and would also make emotion matter, or not. The problem with emotion is that it shows evidence of being matter and not being matter. If emotion flashes back in time, then it is not matter; the sub/unconscious aspect of mind does not seem to be matter; but spirituality between people and other life forms and instincts between life forms, both, seem to be limited by space and density, and both, result from emotion.

The easy answer to this is that there must be more than one kind of consciousness, more than one level and density. This is what I suspect. More needs to be learned.

Greylorn Ell wrote:You have chosen to limit yourself by your "not a scientist" statement. Don't do that. You do not need to be a "scientist" to understand these concepts. All you need is a good mind. Do not deny the excellence of your mind.

I am not limiting myself. I am acknowledging a truth. I am not a scientist. I don't want to be a scientist. I am a philosopher, just like I am left handed. Now there may be some people who can be a scientist and a philosopher, just like there are some people, who are ambidextrous, and some people who are bisexual. I am not. I am a female left-handed philosopher. Deal with it.

Greylorn Ell wrote: Dean Radin is a fairly good start, but his chapters should be interspersed with repeated viewings of Rupert Sheldrake's Youtube videos.

I did not get too much on Radin, Wiki did not give me an insight into who Radin actually is.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I watched some of Sheldrake's videos. He is an interesting man.

Yes, but it is his ideas, his thoughts that make him interesting. Once they are presented, does it matter if Sheldrake himself is interesting?

The difference between you and I is that you put emotions at the core of everything. I put ideas at the core.

I think this is the fourth time that you have done this. Because I stated that he is "interesting", you assumed that this was in an emotional context. There is nothing emotional about the word, interesting. You are creating assumptions because you know I am a woman, and because you are sexually biased.

I found Sheldrake interesting because I recognized him as a fellow philosopher. No, I am not talking about his education; I am talking about his way of thinking and addressing problems. I recognize people, who are philosophers; although, it would be difficult to explain just what I am seeing.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Can you describe any of the core concepts that Sheldrake presents? (Without first reviewing his videos?) Do you have a sense of what he means by a "morphogenetic field?"

I don't have any idea of what morphogenetic fields are.

The first tape I watched was about belief in science. My first impression was that Sheldrake understands belief. Most people equate belief with religion, but that is not accurate. We all believe. Belief is what tells us what is real, so without belief, we would all be like schizophrenics, not knowing what is real or what to believe.

My second impression was that Sheldrake uses patterns and consistency to evaluate truth -- a philosopher. I have long realized that science likes to play pretend and not notice things that do not fit into its little boxes, but I had not realized the extent of this game. The video was an eye-opener.

I also watched a video about angels, which was presented from a mystical religious view. Sheldrake was a guest and not responsible for the presentation, and I did not watch all of it. One of the things that did interest me was Sheldrake's statements about angels as understood by Aquinas. Apparently Aquinas saw angels as in motion when they were visible, and not bowing to space and time when they were not visible. I will have to watch that video again to get a better idea of what they are talking about.

One of the tapes talked about 'habits', which I thought to be an inadequate word to describe the following: Sheldrake theorized that a rat on one continent could learn something, and rats all over the world would be better able to learn it because of the first rat's experience. This reminded me of Jung's Oneness idea, where he thought that all humans are connected in the sub/unconscious mind. There are others, who believe there is a connection which explains the world-wide mental leaps that mankind occasionally makes; although, I can't remember their names to cite this information. I have long suspected that there is a intra-specie unconscious connection in all species, so I will have to review that tape again.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Why isn't all information from the future transmitted back to the past? It is, but there is a lot of it, and none of it is focused. Obtaining a specific complex pattern of information would be like taking a photograph with a camera that had no lens.

Or listening to a radio that has no tuner. I suspect that most of the supernatural and delusions are simply untuned or badly tuned information. Chemistry does the tuning. Emotion and bonding are what we call the tuning process.

Greylorn Ell wrote:IMO you've written enough about your opinions of the nature of consciousness to have created a theory about it, nevermind that the theory is as inconsistent and as poorly defined as Darwinism or Christianity. I acknowledge that you've not formalized your opinions as a theory, and that's a good thing, because they pretty much suck.

You are clear about the importance of emotions to consciousness, etc., and lots of other stuff which any biographer could encompass as a theory-- one of better quality that most of the belief systems that millions of human beings use to guide their life choices.

I will admit that I could probably put together a coherent theory on part of consciousness, and even attempted to write a book. I got the first chapter, an outline, and a title, "The Neurotic Ramblings of a Curious Mind", but I ran out of energy and am low on time.

But it does not really matter. Like the first rat, if I learn it, then it will be easier for others to learn. That is enough.

I have read The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake and it is basically one long essay in anti materialism. And at the end of
each chapter he asks supposedly legitimate questions with out betraying his ulterior motive which is to deny that everything
can be reduced to the physical as that would invalidate God. He finds this unacceptable because he is a Christian and which
if memory serves me correct is only alluded to once. Now I am all for questioning conventional wisdom as that is one of the
ways toward greater understanding. But it should be done with out any agenda which sadly is not true in this case although
the questions can be legitimate in their own right. But any one reading it needs to be aware of Sheldrakes modus operandi

surreptitious57 wrote:I have read The Science Delusion by Rupert Sheldrake and it is basically one long essay in anti materialism. And at the end of
each chapter he asks supposedly legitimate questions with out betraying his ulterior motive which is to deny that everything
can be reduced to the physical as that would invalidate God. He finds this unacceptable because he is a Christian and which
if memory serves me correct is only alluded to once. Now I am all for questioning conventional wisdom as that is one of the
ways toward greater understanding. But it should be done with out any agenda which sadly is not true in this case although
the questions can be legitimate in their own right. But any one reading it needs to be aware of Sheldrakes modus operandi

Because the human brain is a "be right" machine, everyone has an agenda.

Sheldrake's agenda is interesting.

Yours appears to be opposing any idea presented by an interesting and innovative mind. Not interesting, except to pinheads. That gives you a larger audience than Sheldrake's. I'm looking forward to seeing how you engage a huge audience of pinheads. Obama did it. Follow his lead.

Sheldrakes agenda is indeed interesting but that in and of itself does not make it legitimate. As what his anti materialism actually
does is attack the very foundation of scientific inquiry which is the scientific method. Now if you think that that is of only interest
to pinheads you are as wrong as wrong can be. And if either of you can come up with a superior method which is more objectively
reliable then I shall pay for the plane ticket to Stockholm my self. There is nothing wrong with asking questions as I have said and
indeed that is how science advances but Sheldrake is only questioning the scientific method in order to shoehorn his meta physical
belief into the equation. Even if he is proved right that would not change his reason for doing so in the first place. So tell me what
methodology you have in mind to the one that has been used for three hundred years and by every single professional scientist too
Even Sheldrake used it before deciding it was superfluous to requirement although he appears some what alone with regard to that

Gee wrote:This makes sense, as most people, who have random experiences start to have them at puberty, or when hormones in the body change. People who have consistent psychic experiences, such as aura readers, seem to have the experiences from early childhood along with their first memories. I suspect these people have a 'hard-wired' type of psychic brain, that is not dependent upon chemical changes for the experience.

I was not aware of the distinction between those who have random psychic experiences, like myself, and those whose experiences are consistent. E.g: my oldest daughter, who claimed to have such experiences from preconsciousness . . . She's been making a living as a psychic healer for quite a while.

I was not aware of it either. But you must consider how I study consciousness. I look for How does it work?, What makes that happen?, What is the cause that makes that effect? I have never tried to explain this before, so please read this section through and think about it before responding.

Most people do not look for a cause for the supernatural, because they either believe it or deny it. They do not actually investigate it or how it works. People who believe that the supernatural is real try to understand it, so they run it through their minds over and over picking up ideas that add to the original experience -- trying to make sense out of it. These ideas usually end up with a religious or mystical theme. So although the original experience may be valid, the attempts to interpret and understand this experience often causes the information to become corrupted before it is really known in the rational mind.

Gee,
Thank you for this thoughtful reply, akin to our conversations back on your "consciousness" thread before I pissed you off. It seems best to deal with your comments in bits and pieces, as most of those on this thread seem to have limited attention spans.

Let me be upfront by saying that I've seen no evidence that you have studied the causes of consciousness. It seems to me that your focus is on emotions, not on consciousness. IMO these properties are but vaguely related.

You admit to little interest in hard science. While I do not think that official scientific theories about the nature of consciousness are worth a midnight fart, experimental scientists have been screwing around with the problem for a long time, and the data they've obtained must be attended to. Neglecting this data leaves you a superficial student of consciousness.

I acknowledge your physiological restrictions and appreciate your ongoing work despite them. You can find the data you need in my book, which you own but seem unwilling to peruse. I've already done your research for you, and made much of it easily available via my innovative method of using the internet to reference footnotes. Last I knew, you seemed unwilling to acknowledge the existence of these footnotes. Why? They will save you many trips to a conventional library.

You wrote, "...you must consider how I study consciousness. I look for How does it work?, What makes that happen?, What is the cause that makes that effect?"

What is it that prevents you from seeking the answers to your questions in the only book that explains them? What exactly is the crap that you study?

I would love to have a conversation with someone who had actually read my book with sufficient focus to comprehend Beon Theory, and I had hoped that you might be such a person, because of our common interests. Little to zero indication of that happening anytime soon, so I'll run the rest of this conversation as if I was communicating with someone who knew the useful paradigms of Beon Theory and how they pertain to human consciousness, but forgot them. So I'll include an occasional reminder.

Gee wrote:
People, who deny the supernatural, generally fall into two categories. In the first category, they state that it is not real, and is wishful thinking or imagination. They are wrong. Wishful thinking and imagination are both self-directed activities that work through the rational aspect of mind. So wishful thinking and imagination do not happen to you; you cause them. The supernatural happens to you, and you have little or no control over it. It is like the difference between talking and listening. They are both just words in your head, but one comes from you and the other comes to you.

You are not qualified, IMO, to discuss these things. Innovative concepts come fully formed, without language. They certainly do not require the brain's reiterative word-generation mechanism, except to "fix" the concept in the brain in terms of some conventional language.

Sometimes concepts arrive that cannot be translated into language. These are usually lost, but this does not mean that they were invalid.

Beon Theory declares that there is no such thing as the "supernatural," that inexplicable events are merely examples of a technology that we do not understand, or artificial "magic." A Zippo lighter has impressed primitive Bornean tribes. Firesticks have also been known to work. Christ's first miracle was certainly wrought by virtue of wine barrels hidden in a back room, substituted for water barrels by Jesus' henchmen.

Beon Theory says that everything you do is, by current pseudo-scientific standards, supernatural. What does "supernatural" mean, but something that we cannot explain?

If I build a robot with a nose and a finger and order the bot to pick its nose, it will do so, in front of a congregation if that's what's in front of it. I can describe the precise physical mechanisms involved, as well the the computer code. But what if I ask you to pick your nose? You have the option to pick, or not. Suppose that you choose to pick. What is the "you" that makes the choice?

Suppose that you choose not to pick, and instead to thrust an upraised finger in my general direction. Again, who/what made that choice?

No one knows the answer to that question. Experiments explained in my book, performed by Wilder Penfield in 1947, showed the existence of a force or mechanism within the brain that controlled the brain, that could challenge an exterior force such as Penfield's electrodes.

Can you explain how your will, whatever that might be, manages to control your brain? If not, picking your nose becomes a supernatural phenomenon.

Gee wrote:
In the second category of people who deny the supernatural, they will dismiss the experience because it is delusion, emotional hysteria, shock, dreams, etc. Unfortunately, these people are mostly correct. The supernatural usually presents itself in our dreams, in our emotional traumas, and in delusions. But do we know what emotion actually is? What dreams are? What delusions actually are, or what causes them? No. We do not. So these supposed explanations are not really answers at all, just dismissals. The reason that we call things delusions is because we don't understand them. So if someone states that you are having delusions, then what they are really stating is that it doesn't make sense. A more honest answer.

Here you've gone off into babble-land, and commenting would simply add to the babble. Perhaps later, in another post with well-expressed concepts that are not wrapped around emotions.

Gee wrote:What we do know is that dreams, emotion, and delusion all originate in the sub/unconscious aspect of mind and require interpretation to be known in the rational mind. We also know that dreams, emotion, and delusion all react to chemicals in the brain, specifically hormones. We know that we can give hormones to elderly people, who have lost the ability to drop into REM sleep, which extends their life. We can use chemicals, specifically hormones, to cause delusion or to treat delusion as in schizophrenia. We can use chemicals to change emotion temporarily.

Some of this is true, but your statement is an example of intellectual bundling. I don't have the time or energy to sort the truth from the nonsense, and if I did so, what difference would it make to you or anyone?

And a political side note-- what the hell is the point of extending the life of a useless elderly old fart?
As one who is a few ticks away from becoming such a useless old fart, I'm curious. It sure as hell cannot be because of potential contributions to society, or tidbits of vaguely recalled old-fart meanderings that might pass in the limited minds of nitwits for wisdom. Could it be because of a fucking insurance policy that pays doctors big bucks, more than the useless old fart ever made in a year of productive service, to keep him/her/it alive?

More to come, later. Sooner if I can convince the ex-NFL linebacker who tucks me in at night that I will behave myself without the tight-fitting jacket he normally uses to keep me warm and peaceable.

The hard problem some people just like to examine it, and others just like to talk around it as if they know anything at all. Beware of those who know anything about consciousness, ironically they are not really conscious or cognisant.

Some of this an example of total word wank, some of it just someone who has no idea what the hell he is talking about. Some of it is magic for fools.If you like magic for fools though, wax on, wax off.

madness wrote:More to come, later. Sooner if I can convince the ex-NFL linebacker who tucks me in at night that I will behave myself without the tight-fitting jacket he normally uses to keep me warm and peaceable.

Straight jacket or are you actually going to make some sense at some point, without it?

No offense but for someone who claims to know it all, there's no point in reasoning with madness.

Gee wrote:This makes sense, as most people, who have random experiences start to have them at puberty, or when hormones in the body change. People who have consistent psychic experiences, such as aura readers, seem to have the experiences from early childhood along with their first memories. I suspect these people have a 'hard-wired' type of psychic brain, that is not dependent upon chemical changes for the experience.

I was not aware of the distinction between those who have random psychic experiences, like myself, and those whose experiences are consistent. E.g: my oldest daughter, who claimed to have such experiences from preconsciousness . . . She's been making a living as a psychic healer for quite a while.

I was not aware of it either. But you must consider how I study consciousness. I look for How does it work?, What makes that happen?, What is the cause that makes that effect? I have never tried to explain this before, so please read this section through and think about it before responding.

Most people do not look for a cause for the supernatural, because they either believe it or deny it. They do not actually investigate it or how it works. People who believe that the supernatural is real try to understand it, so they run it through their minds over and over picking up ideas that add to the original experience -- trying to make sense out of it. These ideas usually end up with a religious or mystical theme. So although the original experience may be valid, the attempts to interpret and understand this experience often causes the information to become corrupted before it is really known in the rational mind.

People, who deny the supernatural, generally fall into two categories. In the first category, they state that it is not real, and is wishful thinking or imagination. They are wrong. Wishful thinking and imagination are both self-directed activities that work through the rational aspect of mind. So wishful thinking and imagination do not happen to you; you cause them. The supernatural happens to you, and you have little or no control over it. It is like the difference between talking and listening. They are both just words in your head, but one comes from you and the other comes to you.

In the second category of people who deny the supernatural, they will dismiss the experience because it is delusion, emotional hysteria, shock, dreams, etc. Unfortunately, these people are mostly correct. The supernatural usually presents itself in our dreams, in our emotional traumas, and in delusions. But do we know what emotion actually is? What dreams are? What delusions actually are, or what causes them? No. We do not. So these supposed explanations are not really answers at all, just dismissals. The reason that we call things delusions is because we don't understand them. So if someone states that you are having delusions, then what they are really stating is that it doesn't make sense. A more honest answer.

What we do know is that dreams, emotion, and delusion all originate in the sub/unconscious aspect of mind and require interpretation to be known in the rational mind. We also know that dreams, emotion, and delusion all react to chemicals in the brain, specifically hormones. We know that we can give hormones to elderly people, who have lost the ability to drop into REM sleep, which extends their life. We can use chemicals, specifically hormones, to cause delusion or to treat delusion as in schizophrenia. We can use chemicals to change emotion temporarily.

Historically, we know that people have used chemicals to achieve altered states of mind, but the altered states and accompanying delusions rarely have any value, except to make the person experiencing it value it. On the other hand, monks use discipline, sleep deprivation, and even starvation to achieve altered states of mind, and often this does have value and gives us truth. What makes the difference? It appears that the difference is that the valuable altered states are brought on by natural chemical changes. Sleep deprivation and starvation will cause a change in hormone levels; I read long ago that if you are going to have a premonition, it will be while pregnant (which is how it worked for me); women tend to have more psychic experiences, and women's bodies are in a constant flux of hormones; and emotional trauma and shock will change hormone levels. There is a huge body of evidence that shows us that natural chemical changes in the brain will bring on psychic experiences that often have value. And that artificial chemicals added to the body will bring on delusions that may or may not have value. Bonding, of course, is also part of this.

Then there are people, who do not seem to require chemical changes in order to have the experience. I spoke to an aura reader, who I believe actually could read auras, as there are so many charlatans. While questioning her, I learned that she has been able to see auras since she was a little girl from her first memories. She assumed that everyone saw them, but learned that most people don't. Her Grandmother also saw auras. She told me that there were two times when she did not see auras; when she was a teen and took recreational drugs, and in her third trimester of pregnancy. As a teen, she thought she had lost the ability, but when she stopped using drugs, her ability returned. So what we have here is a case where chemicals removed the psychic ability, rather than causing it. This ability was natural to her and part of the chemical makeup of her brain, and possibly inherited. This is what I would call a hard-wired psychic brain.

What would people say if I stated that angels have been singing to me all of my life. It is so beautiful that I wish everyone could hear it. Most people would say that I was a little delusional and ask if I was very religious. And yet, many of our greatest composers have made this very same claim, and at one time, it would have been called divine inspiration. No one thinks these composers delusional. Why is that? It is because they have the ability to reproduce it, to make it understandable to all of us. But this does not change the fact that they say they hear it, not that they create it. It comes to them, not from them. I suspect that this is just another example of a hard-wired brain that receives information. There are other examples, but this post is already too long.

To sum up: The supernatural is information that comes to us, not from us; it is caused by chemicals in the brain; it is much more valid when produced naturally; when it is received by a brain that can not interpret it, it is called delusion; when it is interpreted correctly, it is call 'divine inspiration' or some such thing; discipline and training of a person with a hard-wired brain can help to interpret it. Discipline and training when a brain has random experiences is not likely to lead to better interpretation. imo

Greylorn Ell wrote:I've not encountered this information before and would appreciate a reference. Not because I'm skeptical, but because it is information that I would like to reference in future communications with skeptical others.

Well, the information is everywhere, but I don't know of anyone, who has put it together. If I were a professor, I could get a bunch of students to research this, and maybe prove it. But I am not a perfessor.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I don't doubt that this happened, but unfortunately other people will. They will say that a dream state is unreliable and non reproducible so it is not valid. It is very difficult to try to get people to give up their biases in order to see something for what it is.

Tell me more about that, for I've never experienced such a thing.

After I picked up my jaw, this gave me a very good chuckle. I did not know you had such a dry sense of humor.

Greylorn Ell wrote:SR predicts that matter cannot exceed the speed of light, because an infinite amount of energy would be required to accelerate matter to "c." However, the theorist hypothesized that "information" might not be similarly limited, and did the math on what would happen to information transmitted faster than "c." It would move backward in time, and thus into into the future!

I was surprised that Science, a journal for the hard science community, published this paper, because the fastest way we have to transmit information is via electromagnetic signals, which move only at "c," light-speed. There is no way to transmit information faster, according to conventional physics.

Well, this is all very interesting, but it begs the question, Is thought matter? Most people suspect that emotion is thought in motion, which makes sense and would also make emotion matter, or not. The problem with emotion is that it shows evidence of being matter and not being matter. If emotion flashes back in time, then it is not matter; the sub/unconscious aspect of mind does not seem to be matter; but spirituality between people and other life forms and instincts between life forms, both, seem to be limited by space and density, and both, result from emotion.

The easy answer to this is that there must be more than one kind of consciousness, more than one level and density. This is what I suspect. More needs to be learned.

Greylorn Ell wrote:You have chosen to limit yourself by your "not a scientist" statement. Don't do that. You do not need to be a "scientist" to understand these concepts. All you need is a good mind. Do not deny the excellence of your mind.

I am not limiting myself. I am acknowledging a truth. I am not a scientist. I don't want to be a scientist. I am a philosopher, just like I am left handed. Now there may be some people who can be a scientist and a philosopher, just like there are some people, who are ambidextrous, and some people who are bisexual. I am not. I am a female left-handed philosopher. Deal with it.

Greylorn Ell wrote: Dean Radin is a fairly good start, but his chapters should be interspersed with repeated viewings of Rupert Sheldrake's Youtube videos.

I did not get too much on Radin, Wiki did not give me an insight into who Radin actually is.

Greylorn Ell wrote:

Gee wrote:I watched some of Sheldrake's videos. He is an interesting man.

Yes, but it is his ideas, his thoughts that make him interesting. Once they are presented, does it matter if Sheldrake himself is interesting?

The difference between you and I is that you put emotions at the core of everything. I put ideas at the core.

I think this is the fourth time that you have done this. Because I stated that he is "interesting", you assumed that this was in an emotional context. There is nothing emotional about the word, interesting. You are creating assumptions because you know I am a woman, and because you are sexually biased.

I found Sheldrake interesting because I recognized him as a fellow philosopher. No, I am not talking about his education; I am talking about his way of thinking and addressing problems. I recognize people, who are philosophers; although, it would be difficult to explain just what I am seeing.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Can you describe any of the core concepts that Sheldrake presents? (Without first reviewing his videos?) Do you have a sense of what he means by a "morphogenetic field?"

I don't have any idea of what morphogenetic fields are.

The first tape I watched was about belief in science. My first impression was that Sheldrake understands belief. Most people equate belief with religion, but that is not accurate. We all believe. Belief is what tells us what is real, so without belief, we would all be like schizophrenics, not knowing what is real or what to believe.

My second impression was that Sheldrake uses patterns and consistency to evaluate truth -- a philosopher. I have long realized that science likes to play pretend and not notice things that do not fit into its little boxes, but I had not realized the extent of this game. The video was an eye-opener.

I also watched a video about angels, which was presented from a mystical religious view. Sheldrake was a guest and not responsible for the presentation, and I did not watch all of it. One of the things that did interest me was Sheldrake's statements about angels as understood by Aquinas. Apparently Aquinas saw angels as in motion when they were visible, and not bowing to space and time when they were not visible. I will have to watch that video again to get a better idea of what they are talking about.

One of the tapes talked about 'habits', which I thought to be an inadequate word to describe the following: Sheldrake theorized that a rat on one continent could learn something, and rats all over the world would be better able to learn it because of the first rat's experience. This reminded me of Jung's Oneness idea, where he thought that all humans are connected in the sub/unconscious mind. There are others, who believe there is a connection which explains the world-wide mental leaps that mankind occasionally makes; although, I can't remember their names to cite this information. I have long suspected that there is a intra-specie unconscious connection in all species, so I will have to review that tape again.

Greylorn Ell wrote:Why isn't all information from the future transmitted back to the past? It is, but there is a lot of it, and none of it is focused. Obtaining a specific complex pattern of information would be like taking a photograph with a camera that had no lens.

Or listening to a radio that has no tuner. I suspect that most of the supernatural and delusions are simply untuned or badly tuned information. Chemistry does the tuning. Emotion and bonding are what we call the tuning process.

Greylorn Ell wrote:IMO you've written enough about your opinions of the nature of consciousness to have created a theory about it, nevermind that the theory is as inconsistent and as poorly defined as Darwinism or Christianity. I acknowledge that you've not formalized your opinions as a theory, and that's a good thing, because they pretty much suck.

You are clear about the importance of emotions to consciousness, etc., and lots of other stuff which any biographer could encompass as a theory-- one of better quality that most of the belief systems that millions of human beings use to guide their life choices.

I will admit that I could probably put together a coherent theory on part of consciousness, and even attempted to write a book. I got the first chapter, an outline, and a title, "The Neurotic Ramblings of a Curious Mind", but I ran out of energy and am low on time.

But it does not really matter. Like the first rat, if I learn it, then it will be easier for others to learn. That is enough.

Gee

Gee,

I love this email. It reminds me of way back when you and I were constructively communicating, before I pissed you off. I'll reply in segments. Winter is on and firewood is in short supply. Replying to you requires focus and concentration, not always available. I'll probably deal with a number of trivial comments to others on this and other forums in the process of coming back. I appreciate your energy-level situation. But when you get up a head of mental steam, you deliver.

Beginning from the end, I disagree. It is not good enough to be the first rat, monkey, baboon or whatever. The transmission of simplistic, mechanical procedures within a socially communicative society of critters might be relevant to human intellectual development, but only at the most trivial levels. You are not a rat or monkey. You are beon and human brain. Seems to me that at the mental level, beon has some input, but at the emotional level your brain rules. For reasons that I cannot imagine, you want to put brain and its programmed emotions in complete charge. Makes no sense to me.

But so what? Very little of regular human emotional behavior makes sense to me, including my own.

surreptitious57 wrote:Sheldrakes agenda is indeed interesting but that in and of itself does not make it legitimate. As what his anti materialism actually
does is attack the very foundation of scientific inquiry which is the scientific method. Now if you think that that is of only interest
to pinheads you are as wrong as wrong can be. And if either of you can come up with a superior method which is more objectively
reliable then I shall pay for the plane ticket to Stockholm my self. There is nothing wrong with asking questions as I have said and
indeed that is how science advances but Sheldrake is only questioning the scientific method in order to shoehorn his meta physical
belief into the equation. Even if he is proved right that would not change his reason for doing so in the first place. So tell me what
methodology you have in mind to the one that has been used for three hundred years and by every single professional scientist too
Even Sheldrake used it before deciding it was superfluous to requirement although he appears some what alone with regard to that

Surreptitious,
Why is the formatting of your posts so incompetently done and difficult to read? This superficial level of failure suggests to me that you have nothing of value to contribute to an interesting conversation.
Greylorn

Consciousness is non-local. Drop this whole materialist paradigm. Its not occurring in a "brain". Everything is occurring in Consciousness. You ARE consciousness itself. It is the "container" for everything. Time occurs within it, but consciousness itself transcends time. It can be experienced directly as the True Self from a non-dual paradigm. )

The brain is actually not inside the skull at all,the brain is a concept of consciousness,and concepts are invisible ideas the mind takes to be literal things in and of themselves.There is no person inside a body, there is only consciousness, and consciousness is not inside a brain which is just a concept. Consciousness is not in a concept, a concept is in consciousness.

What we are essentially is without beginning or end. There is no inside or outside of THIS.
The animating energy that powers and appears as the body IS without beginning or end.Bodies appear and disappear in it. All concepts are known things of consciousness which is not-a-thing....relatively speaking for the purpose of knowledge...of which there is nothing outside of this conceptual knowledge.

We, aka consciousness are literally walking, living, breathing, and having our being through our brain all the time, which is non-local, the brain is everywhere, it's when we go to the shop, or the park, or to school, or to work, it's when we are interacting with nature and wildlife or people, all this is the brain braining.
The organ inside the skull known as the brain is just a biological computer, a data receiver and processer of information continuely reporting it's surround, that's everywhere and nowhere, being neither inside or outside of any thing, for there is no boundary or edge to consciousness. Consciousness is the invisible visible.. The Real self.

Consciousness is an ocean of information and is definitely not in the brain, no more than the music is inside a radio or a teleivision programme is inside a tv set.